He decided to play dumb to her motives and watched as the first fruit was wholly devoured, seeds and all.

Cass needed anything edible to feel some sort of relief. Her stomach begrudgingly accepted it. Though, it twitched in anger because the liquid being spilled lacked an alcohol content. Her eyes closed in exhaustion, but her mind was busy designing her next move. She just needed to stall him. The closer she got to Primm, the further she was from freedom.

The second she ate in smaller bites, more slowly, allowing the juice to soak into her lips and drip down her chin. Goosebumps rose on her skin as the breeze caught the wet trail. With each nip of the fruit, she made the faintest of moans. The icy man needed some coaxing.

The third she began to eat and taste along with his fingers. She teasingly grazed her teeth and lips along his digits before nibbling on the fruit itself.

Vulpes could nearly smile at her audacity. Cass had occupied herself well in this endeavor but to what end? He thought.

He couldn't deny his desire to lick the juice from her neck and chin, consume her as she did the fruit in his hand. He wanted to bite that tongue of hers for the way she spoke to him.

If she wanted him to bow to her will, she was sorely mistaken. Vulpes was a man of restriction which he had already expressed with the rope around her, the pinches at her neck. He was also a man of games. He was excited by her challenging disposition. He knew he would win, of course, but he enjoyed the opponent nonetheless.

But what was this new game she was playing? What was her goal? Perhaps she expected pity from him or gratification that would lead to release. As if sex was all Vulpes wanted from this adventure. No, he wanted all of her-her thick red hair, her stubbornness, her inappropriate behavior.

If her goal was to be let go, Vulpes knew he would have to change her mind. She would be answering to him after this was over.

As Cass took the last pieces of fruit in her mouth, she began sucking on Vulpes's wet fingers. Her tongue whorled around them and drained all the juice left coating his calloused skin. She sucked them like Vulpes was her only source of hydration in the entire desert. He was her oasis.

She withdrew her mouth and leaned against the boulder, face pointed at the sky. The stars winked in acknowledgment, though all she felt were knotted muscles and open wounds. She still smiled regardless when Vulpes seized her neck with his mouth.

He gnawed on her dirty flesh. Her salty sweat mixed with the prickly pear juice and turned her skin into a feast. With one hand, he pulled tightly on her hair, guiding her posture. With the other hand, he gripped her thigh, kneading it mercilessly.

For a few moments (or minutes or hours), Cass was lost and overwhelmed. Her insides sparked and warmed to his touch. She clenched her chest in fear because the moans trying to escape were too real—too honest. She focused her thoughts on freeing her arms, trying to pull that goddamn knife from his belt, and kicking him into the patch of cacti. But his hand moved like a sculptor up her thigh, pushing and pulling her meat. Vulpes was gradually molding her to his liking.

Cass freed both hands with subtle twists, letting one ring of the rope drop just an inch. If Vulpes noticed, he didn't let her know. She yanked his hips into her own. Her muddied fingers instinctively gripped the front of his waistband. In a moment of clarity, she used her pinky to feel around for the blade on his side. By then, his mouth had moved on to her breasts. She ground her teeth reluctantly, but it didn't satisfy her body's need to express what she was truly feeling. Fire billowed beneath her surface and she would only allow small pants of smoke break out.

He liked the metallic taste of her breasts, smeared with her own blood. He liked the way she pulled at him and crushed her body against his. He didn't like her timidity. She wasn't a dainty creature and he certainly was not treating her like one. But her voice was quiet and meek and all he wanted from her was a few loud screams. So Vulpes decided to withhold momentarily, keeping his hardened bulge between her thighs.

"Do not pretend that you object to what I am doing to you, Miss Cassidy," he warned against her ear. She shuddered at his hot breath.

Cass was clearly annoyed with how carefully he was unbuttoning her pants and near furious with how sluggish he was unzipping them. But he finally got that growl from her that he wanted when he put his hands at her waist and not on her clit where she thought they goddamn should have been. That way she could grab his knife while he was so distracted trying to make her come.

When he finally put his motherfucking hand between her legs, she swallowed her pride and cried out everything she had been keeping inside her chest. For survival, she told herself as she opened her thighs. She arched her body against him, letting the air hit her stinging back. She groaned at every sensation, angry at where the hands of fate had taken her in life. His fingers worked in perfect vibrant circles and her shaky hands clutched his shirt, trying to pull him closer. But he kept his distance, even when his muscles burned from the awkward strain of his wrist against the elastic of her underwear. She chewed her lips, hungry for his, but refused to lean forward.

Cass nudged her pants and let them fall to her knees. She pushed at her underwear, too, but Vulpes stopped her and continued his maneuvering.

"Fucking mongrel... motherfucking sonofabitch... good god just fuckmealready!" Her hands flew back to the rock behind her, nails digging into sediment. Vulpes slowed to a torturously gentle rub on her wet slit. He was dancing the line between pleasure and pain by the look of her face and the hitch of her breath.

He was on that same line himself, but he had watched her through lidded eyes. Each time she got sight of the red embers of Primm, she sobered and pulled harder. The rope around her merely rested, though she felt the need to play restrained. Vulpes knew she was inching toward his blade, trying to find the right moment to strike. He couldn't bring himself to remove the possibility of her grabbing it. It was a game and he loved the fight.

Cass expected him to take off her boots and pants, give her a good ol' face-to-face fuck-but that would have made it too easy. Instead, he turned her around and pulled down the rope, bunching it at her hips. Her arms were free, but he tugged the rope tight enough to make it dig into her flesh—securing it with a knot. She didn't react violently so he bent her over. Her forearms were against the boulder, hands clasped as if in prayer to an absent god.

"Yeah, you're gonna fuck me like the dog you are?" Cass spat.

"You are quite the charming profligate."

"Is that some kind of Legion dirty talk? 'Cause that shit won't work on me."

He smirked and tamely tugged down her underwear, exposing her fully. He steadied himself with his hand on her back, pressing into the clotted scrapes. She hissed and he liked that. He freed his stiff member and began stroking it with his other hand, still covered in her juices.

"I am going to show you how a real man fucks. How he makes his woman so wet not even her mind can resist him as he slides in." Vulpes dug his blunt nails into her skin. She moaned and he liked that, too.

"I am a real man, Miss Cassidy, whether you have found it proven or not." He stepped forward and found her entrance with the head of his cock, slightly adjusting to her height.

"I am going to fuck you the way a real man fucks a real woman."

Cass snickered. A thought rolled in her head and it turned into laughter. She was laughing at the ferocious beast behind her.

If Vulpes was a lesser man, he would have been embarrassed. He would have been more angry than confused by her reaction. She pushed off the rock and stood upright, turning to face him. He quickly placed on hand on his knife, while his other still held his dick. He was fully prepared for both possible outcomes.

"What is it that you find so amusing?"

Without taking her eyes off his face, she kicked off her boots and peeled off her clothes. There she was, naked and smiling at him.

"You've never fucked a real woman before, have you?"

He was quiet, but curious.

"Because a real woman fucks however she goddamn pleases." Granted Cass did enjoy it from behind, but she wasn't going to let him know that. She was going to kiss him, bite his lips, jerk him off the way she had wanted. No more of this one-sided bullshit. Screw the knife, she had a fucking point to make to this man.

Fighting through the soreness of her jaw, she started with his thin taut lips. She remedied their dryness with her own wet mouth, little nibbles here and there on his bottom lip. She ran her tongue over his teeth and each chunk of bone was a reminder of his brutality. Vulpes kissed her back just as ecstatically, tugging the rope around her.

Her kisses were the only sweet thing about her. She was too worked up to run away just yet and goddamn he had pissed her off. And not just because of the whole, you know, slavery thing, but because he thought that a real man would fuck a real woman without considering what the woman wanted. Hell, a real man drank alcohol. But he wasn't a real man and she knew that by now. He was barely as admirable as a dog. She saw him as a two-dimensional composition of the "men" in his society- blind to the grey in life and focusing on the black and white.

That didn't mean he wasn't beautiful to look at. When she ripped off his armor and pulled up his shirt, she was enamored with his sturdy form, pale and decorated in scars. She could have watched him for hours, just breathing. The way his tight chest heaved up and down in anticipation made her gasp. His shoulders were a landscape of hills and valleys-each muscle massive and round. She relished the dense tuft of hair on the dog-man's chest. What else should I expect from a canine?

After a few moments of art appreciation, she had somehow managed to get Vulpes down on the ground, sitting carelessly atop their mess of clothing. His skirt was gone and sand was getting in all the wrong places. He pushed the annoyance from his mind and admired the woman before him. He smirked at the smudges his mouth had made over her face and chest. It was nice to see the evidence of his work. The mark down her chest was still bleeding and the bruise was expanding around her ribs. He squeezed the bruise with a smile, causing another hiss from her gritted teeth. She sat back on his thighs—her knees on either side of him, pumping his cock and trying not to focus on her pounding headache. She tried to concentrate on her surroundings. It was eerily still, even with the constant breezes. She hadn't seen a nightstalker or coyote or even a bloatfly. The Legion had taken the life out of the Mojave.

She grew mournful of her new found privacy. The wasteland was dying again and she could see over the man's shoulder that the Legion scythe was reaping its soul. After Vulpes grew restless with her teasing, he lifted her up and eased her down on his hardened member. She wasn't very tight at first, but soon he could feel her squeezing her muscles around him. He let out an uncharacteristic groan at the intensity, which unnerved him. He was even more surprised by the depth at which she ground her hips into him, choking his cock with her wet insides. He didn't expect so much pleasure from this position, marred chest to marred chest, barely enough space to breath. He wasn't normally a greedy man, possessive, yes, but not greedy. But he could still taste the fruit on her tongue and words started tumbling from his lips and he was enamored by the way she dug her nails deep into his shoulders. The rope around her chaffed against him and her moans were intoxiating.

Vulpes didn't know she was crying for help. She was crying out for some evidence of life unconnected to the red bull flags. Even the sight of a radscorpion would bring her some semblance of hope. But there was nothing. No tumbleweed, no faint murmur of hungry molerats. Nothing. Only Vulpes. Only herself. Only the sound of joining hips. Cass wasn't the kind of woman to cry, but the fury growing within her had to find the surface somehow. Every thrust of his hips reminded her of the pain the desert wrought. She saw the faces of her loyal employees, burned to ash by the Van Graffs and Alice McLafferty. She saw the empty lifeless bodies of those same bastards, contorted and bloodied beneath her. She saw Sgt. Kilborn hanging from the barracks ceiling, feet dangling and eyes bulged out. She saw Vulpes, murmuring into her neck about how fantastic she feels and how he'll never share her with anyone else.

While caught in her thoughts, Cass squeezed the knife wound in his thigh and he grunted heavy and low, but he did nothing to stop her. In return, he crushed her hips in his hands, making new bruises on her pale flesh. He was caught off guard when she gripped both hands around his neck, wringing his throat. Her mewling sounded more like frustrated groans, but even in the heady daze of sex, he grabbed the knife from his belt and sliced down her thigh as a warning. She cried out, but kept meeting his thrusts. Blood pouring down her thigh, she started to feel helpless and out of control for the first time with a man between her legs.

But it was too late. She had gone on far too long without giving in to the hand she had been dealt. She pushed Vulpes back to the ground. He fingered her fresh wound and she clawed into his chest, breaking open his skin. Their noises became an orchestrated mix of pleasure and pain—the line once previously teased was now being tortured and splayed.

Vulpes was inebriated by her pulsing muscles, massaging his thick cock. He was thankful for her violent outbursts—it helped him stay restrained. Yet, he still wanted to yank her hair, throw her around, and inflict some more damage. It felt necessary. She was bringing out all the best and worst feelings in him. He wanted control. He wanted to intoxicate her. He wanted to infiltrate her thoughts and taint her with his body. But her conflicting actions left him with a strange infatuation. She savagely tore the skin on his chest and tugged at her nipples. She further opened his wounded leg and played with her clit, moaning and shivering. There was a combination of red and lust in her eyes that he couldn't fully decipher while she moved above him the way she did.

So he slapped her hard, right across her face. She winced and sound dulled for a moment, a sharp pain spiraling out. But it felt good. Cass needed a distraction from the sight of the wastes. She leaned forward, giving Vulpes one smooth flat lick up his neck. She swirled the sand and dirt on her tongue and spit it right in his eye. He gave her one last rough thrust and shoved her off. She fumbled back and slung sand in his face.

Vulpes didn't know how to react when she went back to fingering herself, rope still scratching into her hips while she moaned with her head tossed back. Does she really want punishment? Is she that sick? He wondered. Maybe she enjoyed the torment. Maybe she wanted all those pinches on her neck. Maybe that's why she gave in so easily when he dragged her away by the rope. Maybe she wanted to be his toy all along. It started to make sense to Vulpes. He understood why she teased him, snapped at him, left the camp without a formidable escape plan. This was a profligate—a degenerate. Having a penchant for abuse was a part of who she was and he would give her what she wanted. Only because it was what he wanted, too.

He tugged her by the hair and flipped her on her knees. She perked up and braced for impact. There was a swell of devestation in her gut, finding purchase on her bones. Its stability was short-lived as Vulpes drove himself into her, without opposition. The madness slowly wrapped itself around her insides, swinging from marrow to marrow. It scattered through her firing synapses, only distracted by Vulpes yanking her arms back and letting her head slam into the sand. The weight of her body smothered her lungs as she choked on dust and grit. He held her wrists tight at the base of her spine, bucking into her with sharp grunts. Cass needed more pain from him. She needed her attention to be anywhere but in her own head where the blend of desperation and rage ruptured her foundation. She needed to come. She needed a release from the build-up of provocations and regrets. He was pushing goosebumps across her skin in waves of acoustic pleasure, vibrating the fine hairs on her arms and legs. His warm ruddy thrusts numbed the wounds across her back, her bleeding thigh, her throbbing head. Vulpes released her wrists and clutched a tuft of her hair, his rhythm becoming erratic. She quickly reach between her thighs and moved her fingers in just as chaotic circles. The relieving twist of fire inside her grew and erupted just before Vulpes followed.

She reached blindly into the pocket of her jeans and retrieved her bloodied torn sleeve and cleaned herself as shamelessly as possible with him in full view. He spanked her with enough force that she fell to her side, both of them panting and trying to steady their vision. Cass stood first, haggardly picking at the knot in the rope around her and letting the rough cord drop to her feet. Vulpes was less cautious than before, now that he had a better understanding of the sharp-tongued woman. She hissed as she brought her jeans up her damaged thigh and he smiled at the thought of them sharing a similar mark from their encounter (the first of many, he decided). Her posture realigned as she buttoned her ruined shirt. The mud in her eyes was gone and her vision was clear again. Everything was perfectly crisp around her. She felt no need for words or retorts. She was calm and content for the moment.

A clicking noise echoed around the canyon, bouncing subtly from rock to rock. Vulpes was still breathing heavy and redressing himself. Cass smiled. There was hope. There was the light of freedom she needed. It called to her with such a beautifully lethal sound. She would drink to this night for the rest of her life. She would take a shot of whiskey for this music-maker, dance to the tune of its threats. Just as Vulpes was pulling his armor around his chest, Cass saw her new god—her new source of life. She pulled the knife from Vulpes's belt and kicked him back into the path of the giant radscorpion. Without thought she sprinted through the canyon, pushing through the pain of her wounds and her agitated insides. Her muscles burned but she kept running. She didn't stop until she puked and collapsed about 8 miles out at an old gas station that smelled like burnt shit covered in dead gecko. She slept in the cabinet behind the check-out counter, fighting nightmares because escaping was only the beginning.

A/N:share thoughts please! I'm still a writing-n00b. the OP on the meme asked for a vulpes/cass pairing so I tried to make it as honest as I could while still having dub-con love.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.